6/6/66

by JN Lenz

  As we pulled into the laneway of the Funeral Home, a black Oldsmobile sedan almost plowed into the side of our service van as we turned onto the laneway. The car did not slow as it merged onto the street, spinning its rear tires as it squealed back onto the road. The back end of the car swung wildly, as it sped off down the street.

  “What the fuck” I blurted out as we swerved to the right to avoid having the exiting car from hitting the van. We both watched as the black sedan sped off down the road, heading toward the edge of town. As we backed the van beside the garage next to the stairway that led to Fred’s upstairs apartment, we could see Fred emerge onto the top landing from inside. Fred’s face was flush and he was not very steady on his feet, he was holding his right hand with a towel.

  ” What’s going on Freddie” shouted Clyde as he exited the van

  ” Who the hell was that the idiot damm near slammed into the side of us” I added hastily, still pissed at the near collision in the laneway.

  “Old business associates of mine, looking for some restitution.”

  “Restitution? You have to be kidding Fred more money collections. We’ve already gone thru all this, you told us that was it what the fuck do you owe now? Your killing us here you know that don’t you” I began to shout as I felt my blood pressure rise up through my body.

  “What’s the matter with your hand?” Clyde added he was taking the news of the increase in debts much better than me. Slowly Fred began to unwrap his right hand, as the towel became unwound a clear red stain began to emerge. As his hand became free of the towel he held up and displayed his bloodied hand and the four remaining fingers.

  “Holly fuck Fred, what the hell happened to your baby finger? Did those pricks cut it off” I exclaimed in horror.

  “They cut it off alright and they said that they’re gonna cut one off every week until I pay them back the sixty grand I owe them” Fred moaned, the shock and pain of the missing digit was starting to set in

  “Christ Fred what’s next? Get in the van so we can have that thing taken care of, we can talk about this on the way to the hospital.”

  On the way to the hospital, Fred fighting through the obvious pain began to explain his predicament. How he had borrowed the original twenty grand for the Friday game from Vito Grandino, a book maker and loan shark from Toronto. Fred had known Vito for some years, using him to place bets on everything from Baseball to Bowling. In addition to being a bookie Vito was also a loan shark. Up to this past spring, Fred had only placed wagers with Vito and had been able to avoid borrowing funds from Vito to feed his gambling habit. After Fred had exhausted all his avenues of available credit, he made the mistake of turning to Vito for the twenty grand.

  The cost of entrance, he was told for the Parsons Friday night poker game. The same game he lost the Funeral Home to Clyde and I. The unpaid twenty grand after weeks of interest had ballooned to sixty grand. Fred of course had lost the full twenty grand in the match and had no way of pulling the funds together to repay Vito. Before I could give him shit for not saying anything his eyes began to swell, his face was as white as a ghost.

  ” I’m fucked, they are gonna kill me Jack. There is not a hope in hell I can get sixty grand from anywhere, I’m fucking penniless.”

  “Settle down Fred, you’re not fucked. Let’s just get you fixed up, and then we can figure a way out of this. Tell me one thing Fred, is this it or do you owe more money elsewhere? No more blowing smoke up our ass is this it or not. Enough of the bullshit, you’re really fucking killing us here, you realize that?”

  “This is it Jack, I swear on my parents grave this is the last of my debts. Maybe it’s the last of me too.”

  “Enough with the drama Fred, I know the finger hurts like hell but your not dead yet. Seriously this better fucking be it for debts Fred, or I’ll fucking kill you myself.”

  “That’s the last of it, I promise. I’m truly sorry Jack. I don’t know how I could be so god dammed stupid, it’s a sickness really.”

  “Here we are Fred, tell them you were cutting chicken wings with a big butcher’s cleaver and hacked it off by mistake. Did you bring your finger maybe they can sew it back on?”

  “Fuckers took it with them, proof for Vito I guess” Fred said quickly as he shuffled through the doorway and disappeared into the emergency room.

  As Fred disappeared into the emergency room I just sat there in the van for a moment, Clyde and I were as broke as Fred. The mortgage was still sky high, the interest from that alone was eating every cent of profit. We had months to go before the fall pot harvest. We have spent every cent on the Reno and cars, our only hope would be a line of credit at the bank. The payments would be really tight until the fall harvest but we should make it. What a mess Fred had made, of what should have been a lifelong gravy train. When we closed with our lawyer, he told us the place was debt free and still earned close to a hundred grand every year in the late seventies, when Fred inherited the place.

  That in addition to the cash his father had saved by the time of his death, not to mention a six year twenty five thousand dollar bursary, paid yearly to Fred. All the money was gone, plus the over six hundred grand in debts all in less than ten years. The lawyer went on to tell us, Fred’s father had little faith in his abilities in managing the finances of the business and had concerns about Fred’s gambling habits before he died. . Fred also lost all his full time staff in that same time span, unable to pay their wages. Not a single penny would be invested into the building’s maintenance after his father’s death.

  If the bank refutes my loan request Fred may not have any fingers left by the time of the fall harvest. What a stupid fuck, that fool must have gambled well over a million dollars right down the shit hole, for what? Here he was penniless, striped of a successful debt free business which was in his family for years. Fred was right, it must be a sickness. No same person would piss that much cash and security away on something as risky as gambling.

  I was way too cheap with Clyde and my money, sure after every harvest there was always a certain urge to blow some cash. Clyde and I rarely indulged in such lavish activity; we lived by a “Cultivation Commitment” which was a short manifest destiny of pot cultivation, so to speak. Basically it was a simple set of rules we developed and lived by during our years of growing pot. Clyde was the gardener and I was more the marketer and the investor. We had set the business cycle to a maximum of ten years, after which we planned to get the hell out.

  Back in Parsons we lived in a rundown old farm house on the edge of town, we never grew on any pot on the property we rented. We both held modest jobs, Clyde at the abattoir and me as a short order cook at a local pub. One of our only indulgences would be our motorcycles, always older models. We had applied the latest technical upgrades, but to anyone but a hardcore bike aficionado these changes went unnoticed. Few people equate motor bikes with high income, not in the early nineteen eighties anyway. This year would be our fourth true large scale harvest, with the entire crop being sold once a year. We only ever held a small amount for personal use and we never held any large amount of cash where we lived, preferring to keep it all buried in various locations deep in the forest.

  The first three harvests we had limited ourselves to only six grand each to spend on our existing motor bikes or whatever. All the remaining cash from each harvest each year would be buried in the bush. If we ended up getting busted, the most we could lose was the one year’s harvest and some minimal possessions. Perhaps a handful of motor bikes, each worth maybe a few thousand dollars. In the event we had to spend a few months in jail, our release would allow us to dig up whatever we had accumulated and move on to a new venture.

  Six years after we planted our first seeds we had the chance of success in our first legal enterprise. I had planned to use the entire cash from this year’s crop to pay down the mortgage; instead for Fred it will mean maybe keeping all his remaining fingers. If this harvest is as good as it looks so far we should be able to sell it for ov
er sixty grand, enough to pay Vito right now, but its two months to harvest time. Two months means another eight fingers that Fred stands to lose, so much for turning to a completely legal venture. With this kind of debt load I had my doubts that this would be our last year as farmers. Sometimes the best laid plans……

  Fred walked out the side entrance of the hospital towards the van with me in the driver’s seat.

  “Fuck this hurts like hell, those guys of Vito are real fucking pricks I’ll tell you that much”

  “Shut the hell up Fred or your missing pinkie is going to be the least of your concerns”

  ” I know Jack, it’s a god damn mess, but Christ that needle into the end of my cut off stub just about sent me through the ceiling.

  “No doubt, they patched you together fast. I think you were only about an hour”

  “I was lucky; the emergency room was completely empty. Jack I want you to know that other than the mortgage the lawyer transferred last month and this money to Vito is absolutely all I owe, honest. You already paid all the outstanding loans around town; I don’t know what the hell I was thinking Jack. I’m always one hand away from turning my luck; you ever had that feeling Jack?”

  “Not really Fred, I’m not much of a gambler. Clyde might understand a little better, but when he feels lucky her wins. Guaranteed if he kept loosing I think he would quit altogether.”

  “I’m sure most would, I wanted to tell you about Vito. I really did, I guess somehow I hoped it would magically go away.”

  “Guess you have a good reminder now that it is not going away.”

  “Like I said this is it! I swear Jack. Those guys scared the shit out of me, I mean like literally scared the shit out of me. I changed my pants before I came out of up top of the garage with my hand in the towel, they were chock full of shit and piss. I was a fool to borrow that cash and a bigger fool to think I could take care of it alone. I’m sorry Jack.”

  “Knowing you shit your pants has to be worth something Fred, that’s kinda sad and funny all in one. I guess we’ll have to figure something out. I guess we can’t have you working around the Funeral Home with no fingers, bad for business besides how would you lift the caskets?” I replied managing to get a laugh out of Fred as the van pulled back into the Funeral Home parking lot. Clyde was standing in the back lot when we pulled in, climbing out of the van we were both still laughing.

  “Stop it; the laughing is making my missing finger throb even more. Maybe there is a way you can borrow against the pre arrangements”

  Fred offered his laughter faded as he clutched the bandaged hand tightly

  “Pre arrangements, like you mean people pay you in advance for their own funeral? I had no idea there was such a thing.”

  “Yaa, you never mentioned Pre arrangements before” Clyde added, he too had heard Fred’s reference to the pre arrangements as he climbed from the passenger seat of the van

  “Kind of, except you don’t get any money until the service actually takes place. The money is held basically in trust until their death and funeral takes place” Fred replied as he gently rocked himself back and forth on the back of his shoes as we all stood in the parking lot.

  ” So you’re thinking like a loan against future earnings”

  “Yes, more or less, but I’m not so sure if it can be done. I tried to do it once a few years ago. I’m not sure if the bank blew me off because I was already too deep in hock or if they are unable to use that as collateral.”

  “Man Fred, we like wanted to make some money from this bloody venture, more debt means no god damn profit and no paying down the mortgage. Christ that deed you floated at that game wasn’t worth the paper it was written on; can you show us the Pre arrangements?”

  “Yes can you show them to us Fred, I will go into the bank in the morning and see what they say? Gives me something to take along anyway, don’t know if that is going to help but I will check”

  “Come on into the office then and I will get the files out for you.” Fred would lead us into the office and remove several files from the bottom of the large Mahogany filing cabinet. Placing the files on the desk, Fred opened the first file and removed several sheets. The top sheet was a summary of names and addresses.

  “This is the index of all the pre arrangements we have on file, there are still about forty or so here. There are more but I have not had a chance to add them to the summary list. Hard to keep up with some of this work since I let my part time admin girl go a couple of years ago.” Fred stated as he pushed the file toward me.

  Clyde had taken up residence in the far corner of the office in the high back red leather wingback; Clyde still had that look on his face like he wanted to kill the poor prick.

  ” How many pre arrangements we have total Fred”

  “Follow the summary sheets what is the final tally? Plus the twenty or so not yet entered I guess” Fred looked directly at me; apparently he had been noticing the stern looks he was receiving from across the room where Clyde sat in silence.

  Scanning the bottom of the summary sheets I flipped through the pages realizing the first page of forty was just the first of several summary pages. A total of two hundred and sixty would be noted on the last of the summary pages.

  “So you are saying with the twenty you have not listed on the summary, you have around three hundred pre-arranged funerals”

  “And how many funerals are you doing a year now” added Clyde, the first words he had spoken to Fred in the office.

  “Around a hundred and sixty.” returned Fred, who could not look Clyde in the eye but instead kept his gaze down at the desk as he spoke.

  “So this is like several years’ worth of work right here?”

  “How many funerals you do from the pre arrangements every year” Clyde added, now in a much friendlier tone.

  “Well I would say maybe thirty or so, depends on the year really. Plus with the lack of staff, I have been letting the out of town funeral homes handle some of the services from pre arrangements. You know for the people that no longer live in town here. The Funeral Home then transfers the remains back here after the service is over. I could only handle one funeral on any given day. So if I had a service on the go, I would let which ever Funeral Home that performed the pickup of the body also perform the service. Later the same location brings the remains to the town cemetery for the internment.”

  “You’re giving away business Fred, won’t be doing that any more. That was then, now that Clyde and I are here from now on we do all the services on site for the pre arrangements. Why don’t you go rest your hand and Clyde and I will try to figure this thing out?” I replied to Fred, having noticed that the blood was beginning to soak through the bandages around his missing finger.

  “Sorry again boys! I hope we can figure this out; the place is just starting to come back into its own again. Dad would be happy to see it look like this, with all of the work the two of you have done here. I can actually feel proud to walk the halls of this place again, see you in the morning boys.”

  “Ok Fred, try to get some rest. See you tomorrow.” Clyde replied as Fred turned and made his way out of the office and out the back door of the Funeral Home.

  “See yaa Fred, Two hundred bucks a week, that’s all we can afford for a while for you. Take care of that hand! Don’t spend the night worrying, we will figure something out”. I called out after Fred who had already disappeared from the office. There was no response and Fred could be heard closing the back door a few seconds later.

  “I should be able to get some credit at the bank with this”

  “Let’s take a look at some of those files” Clyde stated as he walked toward the desk, I had heard that voice before from Clyde and I was sure the gears were turning. As he scanned the files, Clyde began to read out the ages and the places of residence listed on the files.

  “This one is ninety, almost this whole page are in their late eighties. These people are all old and look; half of them don’t live here.”
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  “Of course their fucking old, who the hell else pre plans their death. Have you pre-arranged your funeral Clyde?”

  “Piss off, don’t be a fucking idiot, you want a solution to this thing or not?

  “Yes of course I want a solution; I sure as fuck don’t want to hand the cash from a full year’s crop to some god dammed scum bag! But that is exactly what is going to happen. Besides just because these people are old does not mean that their death is necessarily imminent. Some of these old farts could hang on for years and who gives a shit whether they live here or not? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “Like I said, look at the ages on these sheets, all in their eighties and nineties. If they are not ready to come to us, why not go to them instead.”

  “Go to them, what the hell are you talking about? Excuse me Mamm, I know you are still living but you really shouldn’t be, so I’m here from the Funeral Home to pick you up?”

  “Christ Jack, come on now, stop acting like you’re a fucking priest. You have done your fair share of immoral deeds in your day; need I list them for you as a reminder? Look, they’re old and used up, what’s left to live for. We’d probably be doing them a fucking favor, move them along a bit is all.”

  “Moving them along? Holly Christ you’re talking about killing them not taking their furniture to a new place. Are we talking about the same thing here Clyde?”

  “It’s not so much murder; consider it more like speeding up what is a certain outcome. It’s the way of Nature; the predator always takes out the weakest prey first. They kill the old and the invalid, not the young and the strong. Come on Jack, who’s kidding who? Chances are the whole fucking human race isn’t long for this place anyway. You honestly think humans as an entity on the earth will ever come close to lasting as long as say, sharks that have been around for millions of years. Not a fucking chance my friend.”